[Info-vax] "Shanghai Stock Exchange" and OpenVMS

[Richard B. Gilbert]

JF Mezei wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> 
>> We wre talking about systems in corporate situations run by supposed
>> professionals, not "your momma's PC", remember.  If they don't know
>> how to set up a secure system and don't know where to find the info
>> they belong on the breadline and not in the corporate datacenter.
> 
> 
> I don't want to support Mr Main's "666 patches per week to install", but...
> 
> A few years ago, the whole Québec medical IT network went down. It is
> all windows based. (pretty scary, isn't it ?). One PC got infected, and
> it infected the windows server above it. That one not only infected all
> other PCs below it, but also infected the server in the higher tier
> until the top tier was infected and distributed it to all other servers
> which distributed it to all workstations.
> 
> One of the arguments given as explanation is that the IT guys did not
> have sufficient budget to hire people in charge of installing patches to
> protect against viri.
> 
> In the end, what matters isn't what *could* be done to make Windows
> secure, but what is actually done in real life. And if in real life,
> there are sufficient sites that have insufficient protection, then the
> fauna of Windows viri continues to expand.
> 
> It is relatively easy for a geek to secure his windows desktop. Not so
> easy for a large corporate network with thousands of workstations to
> roll out a new patch across its network.

One solution to that is to keep the computers in the data center and 
give the users a box that runs out of ROM and has just enough smarts to 
run a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.  ISTR it was called a "Netstation", 
a box about the size of a book into which you plugged your keyboard, 
mouse and monitor and an Ethernet patch cord.  It gave you a Windows 
"Desktop".  The configuration of the actual computers was under the 
control of the IT Department.  It made things MUCH easier!